Bar prep that is. I saw through my first 7 hour day of review. I think I’m beginning to see more clearly that this week is sort of a waste of time beyond doing the actual practice test that we’ll take on Wednesday. I could be wrong, I could very well be eating my words come November or whenever the results are released but right now, that’s how it appears to me. I’ve also spent a lot of time agonizing over whether or not I need to take the three day PMBR course in addition to BarBri. If I was working for a firm that was footing the bill it would be a no brainer but when the question boils down to dropping another grand out of pocket on something you’re not convinced will actually help you it becomes a stickier issue. On one hand, what’s that on top of everything else I’ve spent along the way if it means you’ll pass the first time. On the other hand, here comes loan repayment. After much soul searching I’ve decided that even though I believe that I don’t need to take PMBR I won’t be able to sleep at night wondering over the tiniest shred of lingering doubt as to my decision. So.. I hunted down last year’s materials on craigs list and I think that will take care of any lingering doubt.

I was really sad to see my time off come to an end. A week is not nearly long enough. I tried to make the most of it. I napped a lot, made those dresses for Chase, started watching The Wire and read The Kite Runner. It was a real page turner. I thought up until halfway through that it was going to strictly be a profound commentary on the human condition but somewhere around the halfway point it took a turn. I suspect that the author didn’t mean for that to happen but I closed the book thinking that this book was what I expected from The Davinci Code.. only I thought that The Davinci Code just didn’t deliver. I finished The Kite Runner in about three days. It was a real page turner but it didn’t leave me weeping and fell short, I think, of leaving a lasting impression on me.

It’s spring and our strawberries have started to ripen. Pretty exciting stuff. I guess we’ve been getting about 10 per day. I think I’ve gotten to eat about a half a strawberry total. Chase loves just eating them out of hand and that’s where most of them end up. Spring fever has also grabbed hold of our cat Francis. Last week he ran away twice and stayed out all night. On the second night he, of course, came home limping. This cat has spent more time in the emergency animal hospital than I care to think about. I have spent thousands of dollars on his medical care, xrays, days and days of hospitalization. This cat is undoubtedly down to five or six lives at most. We did not visit the emergency hospital this time. How it happens that he always seems to be injured or sick on a Saturday is just totally beyond me. The only upside to having dealt with this so often is that I am pretty well versed in various warning signs. I checked out his foot and it looked ok to me. My professional opinion is that he cut the area around his paw pad jumping the six foot fence. I didn’t see anything lodged in there and it didn’t look bad to me so home we stayed. He has luckily since stopped limping. I think we’re out of the woods here. I’m going to have him listen to Hayden’s song Woody to help him understand what it’s like to be me.

We’ve also been baking bread. I’m trying to figure out how to work that into our day to day. We made this one start to finish in the bread machine. I think this might be the way for us to go at the moment.